88.9 Hey Radio, Set For The Fall, and Me

By Jeffrey Alexander Martin Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Welcome to the second edition of my articles for 88.9 Hey Radio. I'm going to focus on a narrative this week, we shall see how that goes.


Last time I inset the article itself, and then inset the lyrics inside of that. I'm going to do that again.

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Set For The Fall is from North Carolina and you can hear that hard southern rock sound in their music. They released their first album in 2016, and it looks like they do quite a lot of touring, at least their schedule over the next few months is packed. The music is a nice mix of rock sounds, but I'm going to take a look at one song in particular.

3 Nails is from that original 2016 release and the music video has their most views on Youtube. The song has some narrative to it, but the music video has a lot of narrative to it. I like stories, and this is a good one, that's why I like it. Here are the lyrics. Then, I will probably have a few things to say about the story.

- - - - - - -
I cut my teeth on the lies that I built
And I nearly choked to death on my own guilt
Now I said some hurtful things

I can't relieve the pain
I need forgiveness for mistakes I've made

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

He broke the chains that have held my wrist
He gave me strength when I had nothing left
And He rights the wrongs I made
Another chance for me
With every breath I take
His name I'll proclaim

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Broken
Broken

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Broken
Broken
I cut my teeth on the lies that I built
And I nearly choked to death on my own guilt
Now I said some hurtful things
I can't relieve the pain
I need forgiveness for mistakes I've made

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

He broke the chains that have held my wrist
He gave me strength when I had nothing left
And He rights the wrongs I made
Another chance for me
With every breath I take
His name I'll proclaim

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Broken
Broken

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Broken
Broken
As your body lies broken

- - - - - - -
This is extremely interesting, because, if you watch the video it's obvious that they are doing a modern interpretation of the crucifixion and resurrection. But, that's significantly less obvious in just the lyrics.

I have to make an aside here and address the 3 nails part of 3 Nails. The Romans crucified lots and lots of people, but there is still a lot of debate about how exactly they did it. 3 Nails, if we are looking at the crucifixion story, is talking about a nail in each hand and one nail through both feet from the front. It has been depicted like that, but I'm pretty sure the evidence from human remains that have been found show that it's more likely that it was either 2 nails or 4 nails. Either, the arms were only tied to the crossbeam and both heels were nailed on either side of the upright beam, or there were two nails for the hands or wrists, probably while also being tied, and also one for each heel. Alas, that is less important than you think.

Lies, guilt, hurt, pain, breaking, and forgiveness. That's what the song is about. In the song the 3 nails represent things we have done to ourselves, lies we have told, things we have to feel guilty about, and things we want to hide from. These are the things that break us, the things that we bring upon ourselves. Not only do they have the capacity to break our material selves, but more importantly they have the ability to break our spiritual selves. But, redemption is possible.

Now, we are diving into some deep issues here, meaning of life level stuff. Maybe that's too far for song lyrics, maybe songs are just to be enjoyed and then we move on, but I don't think it's too far, I don't think it's possible to go too far.

The song tells us that you can hide from yourself, but not from the scales. These scales are obviously the scales of justice, but not the scales of justice from the court system, these are the holy scales of justice. And, the song tells us that you can find strength even when you have nothing left. This immediately brings to my mind two psychologists.

The first is Jordan Peterson who firmly believes and states that no bad deed goes unpunished. He uses examples like the wedding of Jacob and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. He's talking about these same scales of justice. I'll let you explore that further if you like. (Peterson also talks about the value of taking up your cross and bearing it. That part is skipped in this songs narrative, which I think is a powerful piece. Although, I do believe that some historians believe that crucifixion victims usually only carried the crossbeam and the vertical beams were usually left in place. Which could be viewed as diminishing the symbol, but I think we could view it as an enhancement as well. You bear your piece of the cross to the other piece of the cross that is waiting for you to complete it.)

The second is Viktor Frankl. He talks about how there is meaning in all circumstances, how meaning is unconditional. But, when you've had everything taken away and you don't have any hope of fixing it, what meaning is there? The meaning is within you, in your ability to change, not your outside circumstances, but your ability to change what's inside of you. You can be materially broken and spiritually redeemed and fulfilled at the same time.

I like songs where there are layers of meaning to them, and this song is one of those. Check out SetForTheFall.com, listen to their songs, and let me know what you think.

Jeff Martin